Adelaide Repertory Theatre. Arts Theatre. 3 Sep 2015
It is not surprising that this play ranks alongside the Beauty Queen of Linane as most often produced among Martin McDonagh's works. It is a neat little theatrical masterpiece cleverly balanced between poignancy and cruelty while funny on multiple levels.
The magic is in the McDonagh characters, who are as idiosyncratically Irish as praties over a peat fire.
The magic of this Rep production is in the casting.
Director Kerrin White's choice of actors simply nails it, and gives some little-known performers a chance to shine. This applies most specifically to Matt Houston as the eponymous lead in what is only his third production with The Rep. He establishes and develops the persona of the orphaned cripple boy with absolute conviction. It's a performance that sears into the memory.
But it does not stand alone.
As the story goes, Cripple Billy is both embraced and asphyxiated by the oddbods of the isolated community of the tiny Aran Island of Inishmaan. Thus, he is raison d'être for his two spinster aunts who run the local shop which, for some reason in 1934, is stocked almost entirely with tinned peas.
Seasoned performers Sue Wylie and Tracey Walker slap on the wrinkles and age up to fuss around in the quaint little microcosm wherein the only contact with the outside world comes in the form of Johnnypateenmike who trades snippets of overheard gossip for fresh eggs or whatever else he can snag and take home to his alcoholic old mum. Wylie and Walker make a lovely, quirky double act as the old gals with their daily banter covering the disappointments and anxieties of their limited lives.
Johnnypateenmike is a core character, catalyst to the grand getaway plans of the island young. He is not likeable but perhaps he is not what he seems. Dirty, scruffy old thing, he is the social media of the day and an essential part of the community. John Leigh Grey makes him larger than life. It is a vivid and fluent performance and an epitome of Irishness.
Eleanor Boyd as the boozy old Mammy shows just what a delicious gem one can make of a cameo role. She's very funny, as are the two youngsters of the production. They are still at school and they are talents which are definitely going places. Benjamin Maio Mackay playing Bartley, in a fancy school uniform which somewhat confuses as to what sort of school they may have on the island, is a vibrant onstage presence. His endless patter about sweeties is as lively and fun as it is important in establishing the narrowness of island life. Mary Rose Angley plays his sister, Helen and, oh, what a manic, mugging whirlwind of a lost soul she makes her.
Ben Todd plays a good, solid doctor in the middle of the general mayhem while Alan Fitzpatrick, a strong and simpatico young actor, is very lucky that as Babbybobby, he is the one cast member who does not have to keep trying to say Babbybobby and get it right.
But that name is one of the notes in the music of language which carries the play and the cast has worked hard to achieve the lilts and sways of the dialogue.
It's high marks to Kerrin for his tight direction and simple but effective sets and special marks to lighting designer Jo Topperwien for some good aesthetics and apt atmospheres.
The pace of set changes could be picked up a bit and accompanying music better balanced - but there's not much wrong with this neat piece of good theatre.
Try to catch it.
Samela Harris
When: 3 to 12 Sep
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com
State Theatre Company. Dunstan Playhouse. 25 August 2015
Shakespeare wasn't the only playwright in town at the beginning of the 17th Century when Ben Jonson was in full bloom during the English reign of King James I (1603-25). Writing wasn't his first career choice - he was apprenticed as a bricklayer to his stepfather when he volunteered for the army and is considered to have killed an enemy soldier in single combat in Flanders. On return to England, he started as an actor. Queen Elizabeth I banned his co-written play, Isle of Dogs, and Jonson did time for "leude and mutynous behavior." A year later, he killed one of the actors in that play in a duel, and also wrote his first successful script, ironically titled, Every Man in His Humour. He was/is regarded paradoxically as a bit of a hot-head and one of the best writers of satire in his time.
Whereas Shakespeare is performed verbatim, Jonson's Volpone (or The Fox) needed a bit of a massage by adaptor Emily Steel. Volpone in the first scene appears bound to his deathbed in Venice and, seemingly soon to be departed from his fabulous wealth, manages to extract even more treasure from three friends who are promised to be his sole heir by Volpone's mischief-making manservant, Mosca. I could see the Jacobean masses ripping laughter at the unadulterated greed of these rich bastards while they manipulate each other for ever more booty, work their way through corrupt courts with crooked, smooth-talking lawyers to protect their assets, and finally get unjust comeuppances.
But that was then and this is now. I didn't peal with laughter or feel anything often enough to make this a great night out. Director Nescha Jelk seemed to have all the design elements in place: Jonathon Oxlade's modern Italianate pillars and arches making a colonnade or peristyle as required, Geoff Cobham's lighting palate complementing Oxlade's colourful personality-bespoke costumes, and Will Spartalis's spoof music. Jelk and her cast invest the characters with over-the-top and physically comedic idiosyncrasies that were at first startling and laugh-fetching. But after the initial intrigue had been set, the script followed the course of a morality tale, and production values that were initially stimulating and unusual became loud and overloaded.
It was great to see some of the old favourites foiled with a younger crop of actors. Edwin Hodgeman charmed with his aged Corbaccio. Geoff Revell made his schtick comfortable in a variety of guises, and Paul Blackwell infused the eponymous role with his comic complexity. James Smith, Patrick Graham and Elizabeth Hay are the future on stage and no doubt we'll see a lot more of them. With Caroline Mignone and Matt Crook, director Welk guided the cast in script-enhancing physical comedy.
I think my lack of enthusiasm for this production is that the characterisations were fully understood once the key creative elements were established, and the story's wending didn't sustain my interest. Upon being told that Shakespeare never blotted (i.e., crossed out) a line when he wrote, Jonson apparently said, "Would he had blotted a thousand!" Careful, Ben.
David Grybowski
When: 21 August to 12 September
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: bass.net.au
Theatre Guild. Little Theatre. 15 August 2015
George and Martha. Ever heard of them? You might have a couple like them in your life. That is, the couple that perform their marriage in public. They like to raise the stakes of the dinner party by goading and prodding each other to solicit a reaction, hopefully an embarrassing one, or to "enchant" the evening with witty barbs on the return of the serve. It's a dangerous game, and can spiral out of control. It can also be very disturbing for the guests, but that's part of the idea, to get people out of their comfort zone, push their buttons and to see what stuff they're really made of. Bad marriage turned to blood sport.
American playwright Edward Albee caused a sensation in 1962-3 when his psychological drama during a long after-party drinks session hit Broadway. He was rewarded with a Tony and a New York Drama Critics' Circle award for best play, and went on to win three Pulitzer prizes.
In Albee's hyper-version of this damaged marriage phenomenon, George is a clapped-out history (read yesterday's academic) professor at an upstate New York university. His marriage to Martha, the university president's daughter, for 23 years, has not resulted in the expected advancement. After a party at Daddy's house, Martha invites over a couple new to town, a young biology (ie; the future - genetics, etc are discussed) prof and his rather simple wife. It's on, as George and Martha play psycho-games with the guests and each other.
This production is an absolute ripper. Director Geoff Brittain has marshalled his forces into a fighting team. The creeping barrages are laid thick and fast, and the swordplay is expert. "the Woolf" is a necessarily lengthy play so that the audience gets the wearing-down effect and both barrels in the denouement have maximum effect, but Brittain's production is action-packed throughout.
In spite of a delayed season due to an illness in the cast, they were a well-oiled machine of rapid-fire insults and slanging matches. There are four-out-of-four terrific performances. Julie Quick played a great Martha - mercurial and a superb drunk. Her venomous barbs lingered in the air and from the front row were rather frightening. Chris Leech as the harried George was every inch the has-been prof, but a cunning one as he invents new games, like Hump the Host, and Get the Guests. Mark Healy's Nick had the necessary unbalance while Jessica Carroll's Honey's descent into an alcoholic haze was palpable. But it was the way that Brittain had them working together with repartee, and in creating changes of mood and pace. Martha and George encircled their prey and used them like bait that ends in a winner-take-all end-game. Tony Clancy's study/lounge room set was just the ticket, but the soundtrack added nothing.
This is another Theatre Guild production delivering the goods and should not be missed. Double bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 12 to 22 August
Where: Little Theatre, University of Adelaide
Bookings: trybooking.com
Windmill Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre and AJZ Productions. Space Theatre. 14 Aug 2015
"the book of loco" won the 2013 Adelaide Fringe Festival Award for Best Theatre Production, so I was mucho looking forward to my first viewing and this faithful reprise with writer, creator and sole performer, Alirio Zavarce, and original director, Sasha Zahra, after a second season at Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre last year.
This one act play is an extremely creatively expressed autobiographical amble through Zavarce's earlier and unsettled life, prior to current contentment with his wife Juliette and their two kids. He has a lot to get off his chest, and if he's not still terribly angry about it all, he certainly acted like he was. And that's probably why I left the theatre feeling rather sad, as if the trespasses against him, and those he saw in life, were not forgiven, in spite of a plea to the audience to be kind and considerate of one another, politically and even when exiting a burning building.
Many of his life's incidences struck a parallel with mine, but some serious ones I have not had to endure. Desperate phone calls with the recent ex- telling him to buck up had me recollect some pathetic moments. I have not endured the racial profiling from customs that Zavarce relates on return trips back to Australia, however, I share with him the dislocation of the life of a migrant to this country, and terrible visits back home to ailing, dying or dead parents. A kind of a running theme was what to do in an emergency (and airplane trips figure prominently here again) - later it emerges why. No, I haven't had that happen to my family.
Zavarce, stuffed into a black suit, and sweating profusely, is variably charming, frightening, funny, pathetic, threatening, throwing away anger and the next moment, defeated - driven crazy by manipulating authorities, bad behaviour, or just bad luck. Moment by moment, you just don't know what will be the next turn in the tale.
Director Zahra and Zavarce employ a panoply of theatrical tricks and script devices to keep one off balance - not quite knowing where something is leading and then bringing it all together. Every action seemed to be loaded with symbolic content, although I found selling the plate of shit irrelevant and he could have saved himself the 20 bucks, which must be adding up to quite a sum by now, the third season. The set, comprised of walls of cardboard cartons, designed by Jonathon Oxlade, provided me with a sense of transition or change - on the move, so to speak. As the wall was dismantled in various ways, the boxes lent themselves to all kinds of makeshift props and purposes.
"the book of loco" is like a book from the bible - allegorical, historical, mythical, entertaining, educational, functional and above all, human. A plate of poo and all the rest not to be missed.
David Grybowski
When: 15 to 22 August
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Sydney Dance Company. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 6 Aug 2015
De Novo (Latin): “from the beginning, afresh, anew”.
Sydney Dance Company’s new suite of three works, by three different choreographers, collectively embodies the essence of ‘De Novo’
With choreography by Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela, Larissa McGowan and Alexander Ekman, Sydney Dance Company gifts their audience with an evening of pure playtime for the curious of mind, romantically inclined, and pop culture enthusiast.
What it means to ‘emerge’, to reveal, grounds all three works. Topical subjects are played with afresh. How things are perceived to be is imagined anew.
The opening work, Bonachela’s Emergence, proves a rich experience in three phases.
Benjamin Cisterne’s lighting and Dion Lee’s costumes synchronise impressively with the subtle range in Bonachela’s choreography, which is centred on the body and emotive expression. The unified whole is beautiful and canny.
The first phase finds dancers wearing a striking mix of black and white, lit by thin mobile tubes of bright white. Classical form, lifts, and duets infuse the piece with a romantic air. Dancers are turned and lifted to the white side and back to the black in a series of passionate duets. One is enchanted as the svelte forms of dancers’ bodies are suddenly revealed and then hidden again. The gorgeously revealed human forms give both light and costume designs breath-taking purpose.
The costumes remain for phase two and it seems Lee’s design might constrict the choreography, but it is not so. The lighting shifts to warm yellow, and throws into relief both white and black; the dancers’ bodies are more fully revealed.
Choreographically, Bonachela moves to contemporary mode. The lighting change, combined with free flowing, warm and energetic glides, company tableaux and duets, offers a lovely sense of freedom and openness. The striking juxtaposition to the emotional intensity of phase one’s sense of “now you see it, now you don’t” is refreshing.
Bonachela’s third phase finds the company in black leotards with differing grey graphic designs. The previous phase had edged closer to a sense of full ‘revelation’. These more muted colours seem a reversion. Is it? There is a choreographic focus on strict adherence to line and form and turns draw one’s eyes to both the costume graphics and body shape, without really offering a sense of where the work’s journey has gone. Back to the beginning, perhaps?
McGowan’s Fanatic, a reimagining of cult sci-fi films Alien and Predator, is obviously a massive fan boy/girl audience moment given its enthusiastic reception.
Partnering with dramaturg Sam Haren, sound constructor Steve Mayhew, and lighting designer Benjamin Cisterne, McGowan throws down a gutsy, hard-core, comic 15 minutes of pure pop culture bliss.
Focussed on the character Ripley and pivotal film scenes, McGowan lovingly tears them apart and rebuilds them, bending character’s bodies using sharp, stop/start, angled moves cued to Mayhew’s sound effects and spoken lines. Cisterne’s sharp lighting references the movies’ darkest moments.
Fanatic has the audience with them. Haren’s contribution ensures a sharp and punchy dramatic structure, taking McGowan’s piece to another level entirely. The opening night audience is in thrall, accepting the work’s interpretation of the films as totally authentic. That is McGowan and team’s big achievement.
The final work, Ekman’s Cacti, roundly rails against how and why art is critically perceived. The choreography displays a tremendously bright, sharp and biting, cerebral sense of humour.
High art evaluation and criticism is mockingly examined in the nicest, most richly entertaining way. What better way to play with such ideas than to use a string quartet playing onstage?
Cacti has its roots more in music theatre than contemporary dance, though of course, it is the contemporary approach grounding the work.
Ekman co-designed the set with Thomas Visser. It consists of square blocks used as pedestals. On each pedestal crouches a dancer, costumed by Ekman in black coolie cap, body stocking and black coolie trousers.
His dancers make wonderful statues and film stars - not to mention a fantastic music theatre vaudeville hall dance corp, as the string quartet play around them.
The pedestal boxes come into their own as Cacti progresses; morphing from pedestal to painting canvas, to small screen to dressing box, to postmodern architectural construct.
Ekman and Visser combine to produce a work criticising the static nature of art perception which is lapped up by an appreciative, knowing audience.
David O’Brien
When: 6 to 8 Aug
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: Closed